Brave
by Cariandra
Summary: Not until Sherlock Holmes, the only man who ever reduced her to a stammering mess, walked into her morgue and told her that she counted could anyone say Molly Hooper was brave. Post-Riechenbach


The moment she put the syringe in his hand Molly knew something had changed. A fundamental shift in the course of her life had occurred. There was no longer just the quiet, mousy, stammering Molly Hooper. Something had taken root inside of her. It was growing, changing her.

It didn't matter that only she and Sherlock knew. Molly had seen it in his eyes. The relief when the words "What do you need?" had left her lips not once, but twice, the surprise at her lack of shock when he had explained just how dire his situation had become. Molly had shifted from the only pathologist Sherlock trusted enough for test results to something _more._ Had she always been more, to Sherlock and herself, and never realized?

"Are you sure that this… that this is the only way?" Molly felt a surge of pride for only stammering once. His presence made it so hard to think clearly about anything besides test results and what question he would ask her next. If Molly was honest with herself she lived for his questions and random visits to the lab, for a reason to think of things so far beyond the normal scope of her life.

Unfortunately matters of the heart had always made Molly's stomach drop and her insides freeze. Sherlock's lightning fast questions, his intensely green eyes, and that neck (that gorgeous, _beautiful_ neck) that he refused to cover with anything besides that scarf that smelled almost as good as his coat compounded the issue tenfold.

"It's the only way to save them." The sadness Sherlock didn't attempt to hide around her only pushed Molly forward.

Molly would never let go of the expression Sherlock had worn when she had quickly suggested the best way to make everyone believe that he was, truly, dead. Oh, it had been his idea to jump from the roof. The idiot always had to make a scene.

But it had been Molly who had decided the best way to make it _real._ Make it so that no one would question that Sherlock Holmes, the great fraud, had jumped like the coward he was and avoided the consequences of his actions. Molly knew what drug to give him to stop his heart. She knew how to make sure that the right one was given in time to make it start again. And she damn well knew how to get him into the morgue and replaced with another body before anyone, even the police, would know the wiser.

A small part of Molly had screamed in glee at Sherlock's astonished expression as she, without missing a beat, quickly explained the best and most logical way to pull off the craziest idea he had ever had (although the lab stunt in Baskerville that John had told her about was an extremely close second). She knew Sherlock had expected to have to soothe Molly's easily startled sensibilities. But when it came to taking down Jim from IT (Moriarty, Jim from IT was a hideous, cruel lie), the bastard who had used her solely to get to Sherlock, Molly had no qualms about doing whatever it took.

The anger didn't erase the guilt that was already building. Molly had seen hundreds of destroyed souls walk through her morgue. She knew the face that John would wear when she delivered the final words. Sherlock Holmes was dead. The consequences, however, of not saying those words, would be so much worse than John's destroyed face. John would never say another word if Molly did not play her part.

Moriarty had made one fatal mistake. He had forgotten Molly. He had forgotten what a woman used and scorned did to make things right. And he had missed the one most important thing. She loved Sherlock Holmes with a passion even Sherlock himself had not seen until that very moment, even after that hideous, awful Christmas party. While Moriarty had brushed it off as a meaningless infatuation Molly, and now Sherlock knew, that it went so much deeper. Molly just hoped that Sherlock was a good enough man to not use it against her (she was not naive enough to miss what those ever so rare compliments were for).

So Molly watched Sherlock put the syringe in his pocket and pull out his mobile. She felt the cold tickle of fear start to work its way into her heart but did not let it go further. In a few hours John would be racing back to the hospital, having realized the trick Sherlock had played. There was no time to waste dreading what was to come. Jim would be on the roof. Sherlock would soon not be on the roof. It was time for Molly to play her part.

She gave Sherlock one last look and walked out the door. Clipboard in hand Molly walked down the hallway and stairs to the morgue. The second bottle of drugs weighed heavily in her pocket. The drawer holding the next body was waiting for her attention. It would be less conspicuous if Molly was actively working when the fall occurred.

The Y-incision was easy, done a hundred times before. Molly's voice did not waver as she spoke her findings for the official record. The fear slowly ebbed as the sharp attention to detail needed for work took over her mind. Two more bodies were examined with the same exacting thoroughness.

It began with the fourth body, Molly's hands buried deep in a chest cavity. The yelling. People running down the hallway. Molly slipped her gloves off and paused the recorder. It was time.

She gave the appropriate responses ("Are you sure?", "Sherlock would never do that!") when the nurses in the hallway told her what had happened, whose body was coming to the morgue. Molly managed to convey the proper shock and horror even though some small part of her had wondered if it was really going to happen, if it had all been just a dream.

When the double doors opened at the end of the hallway, two nurses rolling a gurney with a sheet covered body towards her, Molly quickly waved them into the morgue as if it were anyone else. Molly would give them no reason to gossip more than she already knew would occur. Everyone knew how she felt about the (formerly) great Sherlock Holmes.

Molly readied the second syringe and pulled back the sheet covering his body. The emergency physicians hadn't even washed the blood from his face. The bright red contrasted sharply with his skin, barely congealed in the short time since his fall. Pulling his already open shirt farther to the side (at least the emergency physicians had tried to revive him) she slid the needle into his already too pale skin and sent the drug straight to his heart.

_Oh God please work. Please don't let me be the reason Sherlock Holmes really dies._

Molly placed the borrowed stethoscope (no need for a pathologist to have one regularly) on his chest and waited. And waited. The longest 10 seconds of Molly's life passed before she heard the most beautiful sound in the world. And again. Over and over Sherlock's heart beat slowly but steadily in his chest. She didn't bother to suppress the laugh that bubbled from her throat. Sherlock was alive! They had done it!

The doctor in Molly quickly took over her joyous glee and began cataloging everything else besides the fact that Sherlock was not, in fact, dead. There was not much time before the police and John, dear lord, John were going to begin asking questions. The head wound was going to leave a nasty scar and the mottled purple traveling down chest and ribs signaled at least a few weeks of recovery time.

Using a kidney tray Molly cleaned and sterilized the worst of his wounds and stitched them to the best of her ability. Working on corpses for a living meant it was not the cleanest work ever done. Luckily the one on his head was mostly covered by his hair. Sherlock's eyes began to move under his eyelids as Molly worked. She wrapped his chest to stabilize his ribs and verified that he had no other broken bones, confirmed that he did have, at the least, a mild concussion (probably more than that) based on his pupil response, then quickly sent a text to the newest number in her phone, Mycroft Holmes.

Molly had no need to ever see that man again after experiencing the most uncomfortable 11 hours of her life the year prior following the Moriarty incident. After that unfortunate interrogation Molly was positive Holmes the elder knew more about her love life than she.

A groan pulled Molly back to the present. Carefully avoiding his stitches Molly rested her hand on his cheek. "Sherlock?" When he didn't immediately shrug off her touch she continued, "Sherlock, can you hear me?" A twitch and a louder groan was all she received in response. Still out of it then.

Knowing Mycroft would be arriving any moment Molly grabbed the bag full of supplies Sherlock had provided her. A change of clothes, new ID, new phone, and cash to purchase a ticket to a yet unknown country.

The sound of Sherlock attempting to sit up on the morgue table alerted Molly to his current state of consciousness. Molly felt a pang of sympathy at the scrunched look of pain on Sherlock's face. He had been so adamant that Molly use no painkillers. Despite knowing what he would go from what she had learned of his past Molly didn't blame him.

"Did you want to change before Mycroft arrives?" Sherlock touched his forehead, feeling Molly's hastily done stitches run into his hairline.

"Yes. How long since…?" he was unable to finish the sentence, the knowledge that his life as he knew it was over sinking in.

Taking pity on him Molly glanced at the clock. "You were brought in 20 minutes ago," had it really only been 20 minutes? It felt like hours. "I texted Mycroft when your… when your heart restarted. Do you need help getting to my office?" Molly swallowed against the sudden dryness of her throat and cursed her stammering.

"I can walk," Sherlock slowly lowered himself to the ground but did not remove his hands tight grip from the table. Molly picked up the bag containing his change of clothes and followed Sherlock's slow progress across the morgue to her office. Once he was safely leaning against the side of her desk Molly placed the bag on its top and closed the door, leaving it ajar in case he needed assistance.

She set to work cleaning up the mess she had made cleaning up his wounds. The kidney tray went to the sink to be sterilized, the wrappings and leftover stitching she placed in a separate bag to be burned later. Molly fetched her clipboard from where she had left it when the commotion began and started to fill out the paperwork that would be needed to complete their ruse.

Footsteps in the hallway alerted Molly that she would soon no longer be alone. She prepared herself to play the distraught friend of the deceased consulting detective. How did one act when pretending that someone you cared about hadn't asked you to help him fake his death? How did you lie to everyone you knew? Molly realized that faking Sherlock's death was the easy part. Keeping everyone (Mike, Mrs. Hudson, John, poor destroyed John…) from seeing what she had done would be the challenge.

_Pretend it's like when Dad died._

Molly forced herself to remember the day her brother had called, saying that the worst had finally happened. Everything she had felt, the disbelief (even though they had known for over a year it was coming), the anger, the deep seated pain of knowing that he was _gone, _gone and was never coming back, bubbled up inside her. When her throat closed up with oncoming tears Molly didn't stop them.

Molly sucked in a deep breath when Mycroft walked through the morgue doors, hoping, but knowing she had been unable to hide the sob that was about to break free from her chest. He gave her a glance before tapping his umbrella against the concrete floor. _I should have known it was him from that sound alone._

"Is he well?" he asked.

Molly nodded towards her office, "In there. He's a bit banged up. Should be ok in a few weeks." She suppressed a hysterical giggle, her words from Christmas coming back full force. Mycroft nodded. Sherlock's only response was to kick the bag with his old clothes through the gap in door. Molly shook her head and smiled as Mycroft picked the bag up with a sharp look of disdain.

"Then I guess we'll skip the usual pleasantries. There is a car waiting 5 blocks away. Sherlock will surely know the most effective route to avoid the mess outside. Please provide him with any assistance he may require." Mycroft glanced to her office and then looked back to Molly.

"Normally I would highly object to your involvement in any project involving subterfuge," Molly winced at the stinging bite of his words, "However, seeing as my brother has, once again, decided to act without my advice I am willing to offer this: If you suspect you are being watched, monitored, followed, or any paranoia should strike do not hesitate to contact me. We are both equally involved in this situation and must see it out to its completion." _We must protect Sherlock_ did not need to be said aloud.

"Thank you. I will." Molly agreed. A weight that had been pressing on her shoulders fell away. Someone else would know, would help her if Sherlock was unable. When the agents in Moriarty's network began to disappear one by one it would not take the smarter ones long to figure out what Sherlock had done. The chances were incredibly slim that they would link his greatest trick to Molly (it wasn't the first time someone had faked their death on her watch), but if they did… Mycroft would be there to protect one of Sherlock's last links to his old life. The life he would to return to one day.

Mycroft turned and walked from the morgue, umbrella tapping as he went. The doors swung shut behind him, the click of the latch seeming too loud in the unbearably quiet morgue. Molly went back to her office and tapped on the frame.

"Are you ready?"

Sherlock pulled open the door and slowly walked towards the nearest table. The bruising on his face was beginning to show in a fantastic splash of red and purple. The scrubs he wore were a guarantee that no one would see Sherlock Holmes walking by them. He set his bag of supplies on the cold metal of the table. A surgical mask rested on top, prepared to cover his face to complete the last leg of his escape.

"Mycroft will keep you safe," Sherlock said, back still turned, "There is a strong probability that we will not see each other for a very long time. I want to…" he took a deep breath before turning around, "Thank you, Molly."

"You're welcome," she whispered. He was going to leave soon. He was going to leave and she wouldn't see him for months, possibly _years_, and all she could say was 'You're welcome'? But what did one say when you preparing to lie to everyone you knew, when you were letting the man no one else was ever able to compare to walk away for God knew how long?

_Say something, anything!_

"Try not to sleep tonight. I can't know how bad your concussion is without a proper scan but you need to take some precautions for the next few days. If you notice something not healing correctly call me right away. I don't care if it's in the middle of the night. You'll need to have someone take out your stitches next week. There will probably be a scar…"

"Molly," Sherlock's 'You are all idiots' voice broke her train of babbling. Molly snapped her mouth shut and looked away while the blush rose up her cheeks. Why was it that she could help him plan a fake suicide without missing a beat but the second they moved to a new topic her brain completely shut down? Why did only Sherlock do that to her?

"If I don't…" he continued. Molly had never heard Sherlock stutter so much in her life, "Do not answer any messages you receive from me unless they are forwarded to you by Mycroft. If I die I've instructed him to inform you. I will let you decide whether or not tell John the truth. If…"

"Stop!" Molly interrupted, "Sherlock, just stop. You are going to come back. You will _not_ die. I never would have helped you with any of this if I did not believe that were the man you say you are," she hastily repeated his words to him, hoping to sear them into his mind palace, "You will destroy everything that Moriarty stood for and you will come back and show everyone just how wrong, and stupid, and foolish they were. You will not give up and we will all be here for you when you've finished." Sherlock stared at her with his infuriating impassive face for several moments before smiling at her.

_Oh my God. He has dimples. And his eyes are so bright. Is this what Sherlock looks like when he's actually happy? Not just excited at someone's horrible demise?_

"Moriarty was a fool to underestimate you."

"Damn right," Molly spouted off in an uncharacteristic show of language. His dazzling smile must have been destroying part of her brain to mouth filter. She pressed her lips together and picked up the clipboard again. "You should get going before the press shows up in full force. I need to get your 'other' body ready for the police."

Sherlock, undoubtedly surprised at Molly's calm reaction to the situation, pulled the rest of the supplies from his bag and tied the surgical mask around his neck. Molly walked to a drawer and began to pull out Sherlock's 'body.' His hand on her arm stopped her movements and turned her towards him. How had he moved so quickly with those broken ribs?

They stared at each other for an infinite moment before Sherlock tentatively leaned forward. When his lips pressed against her forehead a wave of ice, followed by the hottest flash of heat went through Molly's body. She fought back the tears pricking her eyes when Sherlock rested his forehead against hers and was still, as still as he got when a particularly tricky case had confounded that great, huge mind of his.

His breath brushed against her face when he finally spoke, "You are, Molly Hooper, and always will be, one of the bravest people I have ever met."

"Sherlock…" but the words wouldn't come. For once Molly's mind wasn't frozen. She just knew that there was no point in saying them. So she watched as he slowly stepped away and walked through the morgue doors towards the car Mycroft had waiting for him.

Sherlock would be back. Molly turned to the drawer and pulled out the replacement body. She _knew_ he would be back. And she would be there. Brave Molly Hooper, who had always counted and never seen it until the moment it truly mattered, would be there to help him with whatever he needed.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading my first ever fanfic! This has not been beta'ed or britpicked so all errors are my own. Please R/R! I am very open to any advice, spotted errors (which I will quickly fix), or any constructive criticism that can be offered.


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